Finding Your Brand’s Voice

When it comes to your business, getting your brand voice set is a crucial part of the process. Why? It’s an integral part of your identity!

But what exactly is it? At its core, brand voice is the unique tone your business creates and uses to communicate to your audience. For example, your brand voice as a coffee shop might be more lighthearted than an attorney’s office. And your brand voice as an elementary school will probably be a bit different than that of a four-year college or university.

However, brand voice goes beyond being “lighthearted,” “serious,” or “academic.” Brand voice is also about the style, values and even characteristics of you choose to adopt for your brand. So, while a brand voice can seem difficult or complicated to pin down, it’s pretty simple once you just think about the type of personality you want your brand to have.

Let’s take Nike’s personality. Even after reading “Nike,” there’s probably a bunch of words swirling around in your mind: “athletic,” “empowering,” “uplifting.” Through these characteristics, we can get a good sense of Nike’s values of inspiring their audience, with messaging around the fact that everyone is an athlete.

Just like we have certain characteristics about our personality that people know us for, your brand will also have characteristics that your audience will begin to know you by! Okay, so where do we start? Here’s three takeaway tips to get started on your brand voice.

Start With You
Before you pin down your brand voice, take some time to look at the content you currently have. Read through your blog posts, comb through your social media and try to get a feel of the voice that seems to be pulling through. Is your social media serious, or humorous? You may decide during this time that the voice that seems to be coming through isn’t the tone you actually want!

Now Your Audience
There’s many different ways to engage your audience to see what your voice is, such as a survey getting feedback on your content and messaging! Your business can also determine the traits that you do want your audience to know you by. From that list, determine the type of content to create that will showcase that and even the content to avoid.

Be Authentic
Finally, but most importantly. Be authentic. It’s important for your business to truly know itself before trying to get your audience to know you! You may feel pressure to shift into a different tone that doesn’t necessarily suit your business. Don’t do it. Think about all the people in your own life that appreciate and value you, for you. Your audience is the same. Whether your brand is motivational, informative, or inspirational, use that and create the best content you can.